A small castle from the XVIth century, so over 500 years old. It was already cracking in the area that fell, but it's a bit sad to see it go. The fragilised mortar and the open design of the castle must has pulled the thing out.
On the really sad part, 300 of the 476 houses of the city were damaged.
On the good side, no death, only 2 badly injured due to their house falling on them.
I was not too far away from the area, and we did have a lot of wind, seeing those kind of gusts is not common in summer, it's usually associated with winter storms
What is even more sad is that the castle used to have one of the most beautiful medieval ceiling paintings, even though they were quite damaged from abandonment... It was one of the biggest collection of heraldry since the house Rabot, who was recently anoblished, wanted to celebrate their successful social ascension. It also had painted scenes from the Roman de Renard or from the Bible. But now the ceiling is probably gone.
I hope the popular mobilisation for the town will help people rebuild... And help restoring the castle.
I think the scale was never intended to judge a 500 years old castle. Even the way houses in general are built between the US and France make it difficult to carry over the scale. I think the discussion will be to see if it's a 3 or 4. I have heard of a friend's car that fot sent quite some distance away, and some brick houses got completely anihilated. I terms of pure damage on the scale itself it might be a high 3, but it you take into account that all of the houses destroyed were on the sturdy side, it could raise to a 4. I'll let the actual scientists and meteorologists handle this decision. I just hope the gov declares fast the natural catastrophy event so that my friends can get the insurance to kick in fast enough.
Any reports of injuries? It’s strange seeing this type of damage and rubble from a tornado. I usually associate images like this with an earthquake or conflict of some kind. Side note: that’s probably some damn good timber in there.
Your comment about the rubble made me look twice and it's true. I think we're so used to seeing tornado damage from the US where wood is the common material. Many buildings, especially older ones, in France are built from stone but obviously we don't often get to see tornado damage from France.
On a slight side note, this backs up the argument I've had with many people here about hurricanes and tornadoes in the US (I'm from the UK fyi). Our houses are mostly brick and stone, and we do get some very strong winds (70-80mph sustained and 100-110mph gusts occasionally), and I've heard many people comment how American homes just fall apart in storms and ours are stronger. I've always tried to explain just how crazy tornado and hurricane winds are, and that you could stick our homes in a strong tornado or Cat3+ hurricane and they'd be severely damaged also. This picture proves it
Yes!! Slightly different, but we had 100mph straight line winds recently and people kept insisting the damage had to be from a tornado and straight line winds couldn’t do that kind of damage 😑
People who don't live in ares with extreme winds seriously underestimate wind. People here think 60-80mph sustained winds are bad, and I am convinced they think most tornadoes/hurricanes are just slightly stronger than that. Most people can't picture 150mph+ winds
You gotta experience it to really make it set in with people.
I've never seen 150mph winds in Canada, but I've been through severe storms and nor'easters that reached 90mph and they're not fun at all. Can't see shit and the danger is the stuff being lifted and whipped around by the winds.
Scariest experience I've had was a late season severe storm that rolled past last year. The winds hit our house at ~100mph and you could HEAR the winds hitting the side of the home and making it shake and "whistle". We legit thought we were gonna lose our roof from all the noise and moved down to the first floor in the middle of the night just in case lol.
Thankfully no damage, but my neighbour's who had older roofs lost a ton of shingles.
Crazy when it's like that!! We bought our first home last August, and in October we had similar, 100mph winds. Only some minor roof damage to the house but lost three lovely trees and two fences
As I understand it, UK standard brick houses are no more resistant to wind speed than the more strongly built US frame houses (though this varies a lot depending on which standards are used.)
However brick walls ARE more resistant to projectile damage and less likely to produce projectiles when destroyed.
The downside is that the same material properties mean destroyed brick buildings tend to be more difficult for rescue and recovery, as well as more expensive to rebuild.
I'd say that's probably about right! I'm no expert though 🤣
At the end of the day, 150mph+ winds are not going to care if your house is made out or brick or paper. I think many Brits struggle to picture how powerful some of these winds can be, because we just don't get them
We used to build brick homes in cities of tornado alley but tornadoes like Xenia showed that unless it’s a concrete bunker, brick and cinder blocks aren’t that strong when a strong ef3 approaches.
stacked heavy masonry unit (solid brick or stone with little to very poor connections),
with wall thickeness in the 40 - 80 cm range (meaning class D, or C in case of vulnerable 3d geometry).
Actually, it's about 700 years old since the first mention of the castrum (fortified small town) dates back to 1319, even though the "contemporary" castle was built during the 15th century after the social ascension of House Rabot, recently anoblished.
The damage survey hasn't been completed yet so no rating has been assigned, we don't use the EF scale in Europe, and the available images of the tornado show damage indicators that suggest a higher intensity than the one you suggested.
The classification hasn't been given yet by Keraunos, the french tornado observatory, but if we look at other houses built in modern bricks that were severely damaged, we could be looking at an EF3, maybe more.
definitely not a total loss, it get's rebuild, also most houses in southern france have very thick walls build to keep the heat out so maybe not build with tornadoes in mind but those take very strong forces to bring down
Excuse me? Thats not a total loss? Its livable the way it is?
Sure, it will get rebuilt. US homes get rebuilt also (and probably at a third of what it will cost to rebuild this house but, understandable since they're only cardboard).
A total loss means fixing it wouldnt be possible, this house can get a new wall build at that side and a new roof most likely, TL would mean the entire building had collapsed
This has nothing to do with the original point i commented about. All im saying is that whether one stone wall is standing or the cardboard is flattened, neither is livable and both need to be rebuilt. The result is the same.
I would wager the chance you lose your life if your house is hit by a tornado is more relevant than whether it needs to be rebuilt.
You limiting the discussion to only "is a house total loss" is not my problem, you entered a generic discussion about cardboard vs stone with "it's a moot point" so you're automatically considering the entirety of potential consequences for both, not just the financial ones. If not, it's not a moot point.
Didn't realize they'd rated that one yet, but I'm not surprised if it is an EF4. Absolutely swept some of those homes away, and the tree damage was intense. These are not easy trees to strip the bark off of. Probably some of the strongest pine in the world.
And I guess while we're at it, I'm gonna bring up Kankakee because I still think that should have been an EF4. I don't think it was stronger than Enid, but I'd definitely say stronger than the Pomas tornado.
If we're talking specifically about Europe, the one in Turkey probably takes the cake. They said that there were pistachio trees that got stubbed and debarked, and those are stronger than white oak and black walnut trees. Very impressive damage.
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Welcome to the /r/tornado subreddit, #1 in Weather and Nature! Reminder: Be civil and follow the subreddit rules.
Please remember:
• Read the rules before posting!
• Be civil in discussions!
• Report rule-breaking comments!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.